Young Writers Society

Aha! *dances for joy* Yay, chapter, yay, chapter!

But I thought you said Bird committed suicide? I do like Holmes cutting her hair, and the baggy nightshirt. Shall be back later for a proper critique.

YAHOO!!

Don't you dare stop! This is way too cool! (And I'm scared about Sherringford. I don't want him to be dead!)

Proper critique:

“Tell me tomorrow,” Mr Holmes had said. So I did. When I woke up, Doctor Watson was drawing back the curtains. Holmes had gone.

Not sure what’s bugging me about this. Perhaps it’s the “I did” right before “Holmes had gone.” It just made me go “huh? Wait a minute.” Maybe something more like “’Tell me tomorrow,’ Mr. Holmes had said. But when I woke up, Doctor Watson was drawing back the curtains, and Holmes had gone.” Or…sumsuch.

I felt better than I had for days, but still painful.

Just generally painful, all over her body, or specific pain? You just might want to clarify.

I was wearing an old nightshirt that had had the sleeves and hem trimmed so I didn’t drown in a mass of flannel

I love this image!

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up for the first time in weeks. It felt like months.

I don’t think you need that last sentence. Besides being redundant, it’s a bit confusing: I know you mean “it felt like it had been months,” but somehow there’s this little part of my brain going like “Huh? Standing up felt like months?”

Taking a step forward, I felt my mouth curl into an idiotic grin.
“I’m up!”

*cheer!*

“I’ll do it for you,” Holmes said. Watson and I both looked at him in surprise. He raised an eyebrow and made a little movement of his head that seemed to show contemptuous loftiness for our amazement. I hid a smile.

Holmes the Barber! “Now, to judge by the length of this man’s beard, Watson, I’d say he last had a shave about so long ago and comes from a family with very little hair loss.”

I sat down on the chair, the nightshirt hanging around me like a sack and hanging down almost to touch the boards.

As stated before, I do love this nightshirt, but perhaps get rid of one of the “hanging”s?

Holmes took the blanket from the bed and laid it on the floor. Then he began combing my hair, gently teasing out the knots and snarls. His touch was light and his fingers deftly parted my hair, avoiding the bruises still there. It was very quiet; the only sounds were the traffic outside. A dog barked, and someone shouted, “Warnuts, warnuts, warnuts, fine war-r-r-r-nuts!” but they were muted, faraway. The house was quiet and still, and the comb made very tiny rustles as it made its laborious way through my tangles.

This is why I love your writing, darling. Your ability to create a perfect moment in time, set in a totally different world yet so vividly painted that I feel I’m there myself. Brava, darling.

Telling it, it sounded much less horrible than it had been. It was as though mere words, knowing they could never capture it properly, watered it down and made it lighter and less real, so they could master it after all.

I know how this feels.

“Kit,” he said slowly. “Did Bird… ”

“What?”

“… hurt you?”

I turned around and stared at him. “Sir?”

Mr Holmes closed his eyes and took a small breath. Then he opened them again and muttered, “Delicacy. A fate worse than death hardly covers it.”

[b]Awkward[b].

“Pray be more specific,” he said, so sharply that I flinched.

Just drop it, dude!

“What’s that smell?” I asked as he came back in.

“Your hair. I’m burning it.”

I don’t know why, but this really pleased me. Then again, I suppose, since you’ve read the Fitz and Fool books too, perhaps there is an element of mourning in the gesture. Anyway, really liked this.

And so on, towards the stars from the mud.

I love this. Don’t you ever let anyone talk you into nixing it.


Overall, I have to say this is my favorite chapter yet. It has a calm, safer feeling, much needed after the turmoil of the past several chapters, and we see the beginnings of a new relationship between Kit and Holmes (masterfully handled), and a side to both of them we’d not seen before. A really great job, darling, do let me know when the next one’s up!

Chapter Ten: Marengo


‘Where do you put your fingers?’

‘Here. You do not always have to use the bow – you can use your fingers to pluck the strings as well.’

‘But you use the bow.’

‘Indeed I do.’

I ran a careful finger over the hard, glossy brown of the violin’s body, feeling the edges of the curves under my fingers. ‘Where did you learn to play it? Who taught you, I mean?’

‘My mother.’ Mr Holmes smiled a little. ‘She was very musical.’

‘Weren’t she French? Or no, that was someone else…’ I tried to remember. ‘It was in The Greek Interpreter…’

‘Oh, not those tales of Watson’s,’ he said lightly. ‘The man will insist on dramatising the most mundane of events.’

‘I think they’re fine,’ I retorted, a little protectively. I never liked the way Holmes had of sniping at Watson’s work, which I ranked on a par with Dickens. He smiled, seemingly reading my thoughts, and I repeated, ‘Was she French?’

‘Yes, she was. My grandmother was French, and her daughter married my father.’

‘So you’re half?’

‘Yes. I suppose I am.’

I put my head on one side, interested by the idea of Holmes being part French. From what I knew, the French ate frogs and talked in the strangest way I had ever heard – excepting the words that a dark-skinned ballad-seller had shouted, after Wiggins had nearly pinched his snuffbox. Mr Holmes held out his hand and I gave the violin to him. He tucked it under chin and, looking at me out of the corner of his eye, plucked a few strings and made them pop. I grinned. ‘Sounds like rain.’

‘In a puddle.’ He rested the violin on his knee and looked at it thoughtfully. ‘It has possibilities.’

I looked out of the window. We were in Holmes’ bedroom, me on the bed, and he on the chair next to it. The sky was hanging heavy with clouds, grey and gloomy, cutting off what little light the sun was giving before it even reached the street. The air was humid, smelling of smoke and rubbish. We could either have the window closed and half suffocate from the stuffiness of the house, or have it open and half suffocate from the smell of the street. We were suffocating at present.

Mr Holmes followed my gaze. ‘Not the pleasantest of days, is it?’

‘It’s bloomin’ awful.’ I dug my finger into the pillow and scowled at the deep dent it left in the feathers, suddenly fed up with everything. There had been no news of Bird at all. He seemed to have vanished; there was no sign of him in London, no sign of him outside London, no sign of him anywhere. The police were baffled, but that, as Mr Holmes said, was nothing to write to the newspapers about.

I had stayed at Baker Street, even when I was ‘better enough’ to leave. Neither Mr Holmes nor Doctor Watson had said anything about my leaving. Mrs Hudson, although she fussed and told me that I should brush my hair more than once a week, had – for the first time in her life, I wagered – remained silent too. I liked it at Baker Street; I watched Watson prepare his medicines, watched Holmes play with his chemicals, slept on the couch and tried not to think of the rest of the Irregulars. How long was it since I had seen Wiggins? Or Rat? Too long. But how can I see them again? Li’s dead, and I – My thoughts trickled away, not wanting to confront that particular point. What am I? I don’t even know what happened with Bird... I had a nasty feeling that I could remember perfectly well if I chose, but I didn’t want to. So what? I can not think about it if I want to.

A cool, bony hand touched my own. ‘Bird will be found, Kit. The police are fools, but… Do you think I’ve forgotten what he has done?’

I glanced up and met his eyes. It was like touching clouded ice; I looked down again almost immediately.

---

I awoke from an uncomfortable dream of a costermonger boy banging my head against the floor. I yawned and realized that the thumping noise was someone at the door. Scratching my head, I sat up and rested my chin on the back of the couch. Watson came out of his bedroom, blinking and wrapping a coat over his shoulders. He went to the door, opened it and Lestrade bounced in like a cork loosed from a bottle top.

‘Where is Mr Holmes?’

‘Lestrade?’ Watson swayed, yawned and gazed at the other man blearily.

‘Wake up, man! Where is Holmes?’

‘In bed,’ I said, and Lestrade looked at me as though a dog has suddenly told him the time of day. I had never liked Lestrade.

‘Well, wake him up! There’s news.’

Watson was suddenly wide-awake, and I scrambled to my knees, staring. Watson reached for Holmes’ door, but it opened before he could reach it, and Holmes himself emerged. ‘What?’ he demanded.

‘We got a report in from one of our stations down near Dover. They found a body washed up on the beach and it’s been identified.’

‘Bird?’

‘No, Jude Footney, a fisherman. His widow was most distressed, but she told the police – we were cabled the basics – that he’d been acting mighty strange these last few weeks, always going up into the cliffs and staying away till all sorts of hours. We are following it up and searching the coastline...’

‘And how exactly does this relate to Lester Bird?’ Holmes asked in a dangerously patient voice.

‘Mrs Footney showed us the money her husband had been bringing back – he said it was from the market, but a fisherman does not get over twenty pounds for a few herrings.’

‘So he was involved in something not entirely above board, what of that? Lestrade, if you have knocked me up simply to babble of dishonest fishermen…’

‘Mrs Footney said –’

‘Mrs Footney may be an admirable woman, but –’

‘She saw her husband taking three men and a boy up into the cliffs near the ruins of an old castle!’ Lestrade slapped his hand on the tabletop. ‘It could be them, Mr Holmes, and if it isn’t, then what is there to loose?’

Watson’s head had been swivelling left and right during this exchange, and I had had to make an effort to stop myself from doing the same. Mr Holmes’ eyebrows drew together, making a dark, bushy line above his nose. ‘Then do what you suggest, Lestrade, and follow this thing up. Inform me of any developments.’ With that, he turned and stalked back into his bedroom.

Lestrade stared after him. ‘What’s got into him? I thought he’d welcome the news.’

‘It’s not certain news. Holmes only deals in certainties.’

I thought that was very well put, but kept quiet until Lestrade had left. Then, as Watson pushed open the door to his room, I said, ‘Do you think it’s them, Doctor Watson?’

He turned back. For a moment, he said nothing, then he shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Kit. It could be…’

‘Mr Holmes doesn’t seem to think it is.’

‘He is… very anxious that it should be true. He does not want to think it true and then be disappointed.’

‘Oh.’

Watson went into his room and shut the door. I chewed the back of the couch for a moment, and then slumped back down again, tasting wood polish and cushion fuzz on my tongue.

---

It was a few days later. The clock had just struck six. Watson was sitting in the armchair, writing in his notebook, Mr Holmes was at his table, measuring some grey powder out of a twist of paper. A bottle of something yellowish stood next to a rack of test tubes. I was watching Holmes.

‘What’s the yellow stuff?’ I asked. It looked less sinister than the grey.

‘Sulphur.’

‘What’s it do?’

‘It should react to the zinc dust.’ He jerked his head toward the little grey pile on the paper.

‘Zinc dust?’ Watson looked up in alarm. ‘Oh no, not that again. Last time you mixed those two, you singed the ceiling and Mrs Hudson broke her best pie dish.’

‘You cannot make an omelette without breaking a few eggs,’ Holmes said placidly. He eyed the zinc dust critically.

‘Does it explode?’ I asked, a little warily.

‘I would not go as far as to say that, but –’

A knock at the door, and Mrs Hudson scuttled in. ‘Oh, Mr Holmes!’

‘Do not fear, Mrs Hudson, the quantities are less than they were last time. Less than an eighth of zinc dust to –’

‘Mr Holmes!’

He looked up impatiently and began to say something, but then someone else pushed their way past Mrs Hudson into the room. Two people. One was Lestrade.

The other was a very thin boy with a bruised face. His hair was as dark as crow’s wing, brushed back to show a distinct widow’s peak. What I noticed most though, was his eyes. Sharp grey eyes that were as dancingly alive as a storm at sea. He seemed breathless, his pale face was flushed and he gazed first at Mr Holmes, and then at me. His eyes – those steel grey eyes – were wide and staring, almost hungry. His lips moved. ‘Sherlock… Kit…’

It was Sherringford.


-----

Like no one saw that one coming... :roll:

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. I certainly did not see it coming!

*blinks* Gee, I'm seeing pink elephants...

I think all I can do is quote gyrfalcon:

1)

Aha! *dances for joy* Yay, chapter, yay, chapter!

2)

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(and the pink elephants)

Me: YAY SHERRINGFORD!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm soooooooo happy! I certainly didn't expect it but I was hopeful.

‘Zinc dust?’ Watson looked up in alarm. ‘Oh no, not that again. Last time you mixed those two, you singed the ceiling and Mrs Hudson broke her best pie dish.’

‘You cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs,’ Holmes said placidly.

*drops to floor and nearly bursts sides laughing* Oh, that was great, simply stupendous!

And by the way, has anybody ever told you that you write like Sir Arthur? Cause I can imagine these stories coming straight out of one of his books. You have really captured the style of his writing. YAY YAY!

Le wow. A little late to comment, but that was awesome.

*frowns at Lold* Anyway, one thing I noticed. Some chapters, you used a double quotation mark, and sometimes a single.

Chapter Eleven: Fair Play

Bird was dead.

The news left me feeling cheated, somehow. I had wanted to see him brought before Mr Holmes and the police in rags and chains, sentenced to a lifetime in jail, being made to suffer for the rest of his days, which I hoped would be extremely long. Bird had hurt me in ways that I didn’t want to think about too closely, in ways that I had never thought I could be hurt by. I had thought that seeing Bird brought to justice would have lessened the pain a little. Knowing that Bird was being hurt would have helped my own hurts.

Bird was the worst person I had ever known in my whole life, and it was sort of fitting, I thought bitterly, that he should live up to that right to the end of his existence. He couldn’t even make up for the wrongs he had done by going to prison. He cheated justice and ruined everything by committing suicide.

To the police, the case was finished. Bird had done them a favour and saved them time by killing himself. Sherringford was back at Baker Street. There was nothing more to do, no loose ends to follow up.

Sherringford had told us his story; how he had been taken to the old castle at Dover and kept there with only Bird and the two grey-suited men as company. He had been locked in one of the castle rooms and left alone, with only enough food and water to keep him alive. Then one day, the food had stopped coming. He had waited and waited, but no one came, and he had almost resigned himself to die there when the police arrived. They found Bird and the two grey-suited men a little way out of the castle, all with bullets in their head; obviously self-inflicted, Lestrade had said.

I left Baker Street a few days after Sherringford came back. With him there, the flat seemed too small, with no privacy whatsoever. There was no space to avoid anyone.

Early that morning, I got up, dressed, folded the blanket neatly on the couch, tied the laces of my boots and quietly slipped out. Outside, the street was peaceful and subdued, but I could hear the day’s traffic beginning further away. I made my way out of Baker Street, into the main road. Costermongers were wheeling barrows or driving donkey carts, shouting their wares.

‘Rabbits! Two a shilling – fine rabbits!’

‘Ham sandwiches, one a penny, a penny, a penny, ham sandwiches, one a penny!’

A blind man was selling bootlaces underneath a lamppost, holding out his box with one hand and steadying himself on the post with the other. A hansom rattled past, the cabbie shouting, ‘Make way, there! Out of the way!’

‘Oysters! Fresh oysters!’

‘Herrings, dry herrings, twelve a groat!’

A rat catcher crossed the road, a dozen rats swinging by their tails from his long pole. A man in a long, greasy overcoat walked by on his way to Leadenhall Street, a wire cage containing two white ferrets slung over his shoulder. I passed a small girl selling Lucifer-boxes and another selling ribbons.

‘Pretty pins, pretty women!’

‘Hot wardens…’

‘Oi, Brassy, cool him!’

‘A doogheno or dabheeno, Rab?’

‘Soles, a penny a pair, penny a pair.’

‘Plaice alive, alive, cheap.’

‘Oranges, two a penny!’

The cries filled the air, tumbling over each other in their urgency to be heard, yet somehow managing to remain separate and coherent. I drew a deep breath and smelled fish, smoke, dirt, iodine, fruit, rotting rubbish, flowers, spilt beer and horse manure. This… this was home, in a way that Baker Street was not. Even though I had enjoyed it there, now that Sherringford was back, I knew that could not stay there permanently. That was the Holmes’ house, and I was a Moriarty. That thought surprised me for a moment. I was a what? I dodged an old woman with a basket of russets who was shrieking out, ‘Apples, apples, apples, apples, apples, apples…’over and over again.

Moriarty. Katherine Moriarty? The name brought back unpleasant memories and I clenched my teeth together, trying not to remember. Not Katherine Moriarty. Kit Moriarty. Kit is short for Katherine… but it’s not the same. Katherine means that I’m… that I can be hurt. Kit means… what?

‘Cod alive, two penny a pound!’

‘Buy a pound crab, cheap.’

‘All large and alive-o, new sprats!’

Kit is different. Kit is a bit like I was before… before Bird. If I can be Kit, and not be Katherine… maybe I won’t get hurt again.

Covent Garden. Baskets of flowers surrounded by flower-girls in shabby coats and too short aprons; men loading cabbages and leaks into donkey carts and hand carts; crates of pea pods overflowing onto the ground; people shouting and calling to each other. Dimly, I was surprised that I had come this far from Baker Street already. The church loomed up behind all the bustle and crowd of the market like some great majestic mother, gazing affectionately at the doings of her children as they bought and sold and carted and traded. Pushing my way through the crowds, I went and stared up at the huge pillars, feeling their unresisting chill under my hands. The church didn’t change. It had always been here and always would be here, just like the market. Just like London itself.

Kit can still be hurt, but not in the way that Katherine can hurt. These thoughts were getting too complicated, going round and round in circles that I didn’t know how to break. But I needed to think them. I pushed my forehead against the cold, hard pillar and stared at the dull, mottled brown pattern of the stone; my eyelashes brushed against it and made me blink. Katherine was hurt. Kit can be hurt. If I’m Kit, then… the hurting isn’t so bad. Kit is part of Katherine; if I’ve been hurt that way, then… how else can I be hurt? Nothing else can matter in the same way. I know what can happen, I know why it can happen, I know that it can happen to me. So… in some ways, it doesn’t matter.

The stone under my forehead was giving me a headache. I stood up and took a few steps back, looking up again at the top of the church, with its carved curves and decorations. A pigeon flew over, a black silhouette against the blue sky. I sucked in a lungful of air – smelled smashed fruit and crushed flower petals, unwashed humans and dirty cobblestones – and went down the steps, out of the market and went to find Wiggins.

I'm not sure what to say: amazing! Kit's introspection and the difference in her names, the description of London--so vivid and real after the relative safety of Baker Street, all of it, just brilliant, darling.

Chapter Twelve: Dandyprat


‘You know, Kit, you’re lookin’ almost fat.’

‘I ain’t!’ I said in alarm. ‘Am I?’

‘Definitely rounder ’bout the edges, like.’ Wiggins grinned, showing his chipped tooth. It was three days after I had left Baker Street. I had found Wiggins and the rest of the Irregulars. The news of Li’s death had come as a shock, but no one had spent long grieving. Wiggins had shrugged and muttered a colourful curse; Rat had blinked, bit his lip and asked if it were quick. I had said that I thought he hadn’t felt much at the end. The others – Red, Simpson, Harry and Zo – shrugged and looked uncomfortable; Simpson whistled a little between his teeth and shuffled his feet. Simpson always displayed nervous tics in times of emotion.

Now, I was under my railings, stretched out on the pavement and enjoying the feel of the hot stone through my shirt. Wiggins was on the steps, peering down at me through the railings. ‘At least you’re getting’ dirtier,’ he added. ‘Them new togs o’ your’s weren’t ’alf cons… conspic… spic…’

‘Conspicious?’

‘Yeah, that.’

I squinted down at my shirt and trousers, both brought new by Mister Holmes. The shirt had started out as blue, and the trousers as brown, but they were both getting darker as the days went by. The shirt already had a stain on it, from where I had run into a butcher’s boy delivering a badly wrapped paper parcel of raw ox heart. ‘Still,’ I said, lifting one foot and sticking it straight up into the air, ‘my boots are good.’

Wiggins snorted. ‘Mine wear better. An’ I got ’em myself. Didn’t no one buy ’em for me.’

‘I didn’t ask him to!’ I retorted. ‘It was me having new clothes or walkin’ around in a nightshirt for the rest of my life.’

Wiggins smothered any beginning quarrel by snorting again – this time with laughter. ‘I’d ’a’ liked to see you in that.’

‘I bet you would.’

We lolled in silence for some time. Then Wiggins said softly, ‘Kit.’

‘Mm?’

‘Was it bad… with Bird, I mean?’

I thought about how to answer this. ‘It was bad,’ I said finally. ‘And I don’t want to think about it.’

‘Say.’

‘It feels strange in some ways… being back here. But it’s good as well.’

‘You miss livin’ at Baker Street wi’ Mister Holmes?’

‘No…’

‘You don’t miss none of ’em? Not even Sherrin’ford?’

‘Sherringford wants to be on his ’lone, I think. But… when I was stayin’ there, it always felt a bit… I don’t know, like bad. Like I was doing something wrong.’

‘Did you pinch summut?’

‘No! It weren’t like that, more like – like going into someone else’s alley when you know you shouldn’t. It felt like that.’

‘Oh.’ Wiggins sounded wise. I frowned at him.

‘What’chu oh-in’ about?’

‘Nothin’.’

‘You were too.’

‘Nothin’ ’por’an’.’

I let it go. I closed my eyes, dozing in the warm sun, feeling the hot stone under my cheek. Half-asleep, I dimly heard Wiggins say, ‘Hey, Sherrin’ford.’

Another voice said, ‘Hello, Wiggins. Hello, Kit.’

I opened my eyes, blinked and saw a dark figure looking down, the sun behind his back outlining him in eye-burning light. I blinked again, remembered why my left eye was not clearing, and sat up. The figure seemed to swirl and materialized into Sherringford. ‘Hello,’ he said again.

‘Erm… ’lo,’ I said.

There was a rather awkward silence. Sherringford seemed to be waiting for something; whether for me to say something or Wiggins to do something, I could not tell. Finally, he fiddled with his jacket sleeve and said, ‘Wiggins… Can I speak to Kit by herself?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I do.’

‘Oh. Well, all right, then.’ Huffily, Wiggins pushed away from the stairs and sauntered off a little way down the street.

Left alone with Sherringford, I could not think of anything to say. My fingers ran over the leather of my boots, smooth and as yet, unblemished. The laces knotted around my knuckles and I tugged gently, feeling the sides of my boots tighten.

‘Kit.’

‘Mm.’

‘Do you… I mean, are you…’ Silence. He tried again. ‘Do you feel…’

‘Spit it out,’ I said, not looking up.

It came out in a rush, like a calf being born. ‘Do you hate me?’

That made me sit up. ‘Lawks, no Sherringford! Why d’you think that?’

He seemed relieved. ‘I don’t know, I… I just wondered. Because, you know… Li died and – and I didn’t.’

‘I lived too, and I don’t hate myself.’

‘I know, it’s just… different with someone else.’

‘Is it?’

Another silence. I sighed. ‘I don’t hate you or nothin’, Sherringford, it’s just difficult, see?’

‘Oh yes, I do see… Will you come back to Baker Street?’

‘No.’

‘But why?’

‘’Cause I don’t live there. I live here.’ I pointed with my chin at the railings. ‘I know it ain’t much, but it works. It fits, and I like it. It’s near Wiggins and Rat and the others, and not too far away from the markets and all.’

‘You like living on the streets more than living in a flat?’

‘Yes,’ I replied simply. ‘It’s too… I don’t know, genteel, like.’

‘Genteel! Baker Street?’

‘Yeah. My dad may have been a gentleman, but I’m not. I’m a street arab, and I likes it.’

‘Do you really?’

‘Yeah. It’s more free. No rules about when you got to do this and say that. When I was at Baker Street, all Mrs Hudson would go on about was how I needed to learn to behave right. I like livin’ this way, and I don’t want to change.’

'Sherlock would stop Mrs Hudson fussing if you really wanted it.'

'I don't want him to stop it. Well, I would, but... I don't want to, I mean, to ask... oh can't you just leave it?'

Sherringford sighed. He sat down on the pavement, his feet in the gutter, and rested his chin in his hands. He watched a cabbie walking a horse up and down further along the street.

'You'll get your trousers dirty,' I said.

He turned and stared at me. He opened his mouth, shut it again. He seemed to be struggling for a moment, then suddenly let it out. 'Do you think I really care about the state of my trousers? Everyday Mrs Hudson nags at me because I've torn something or lost a sleeve stud. You seem to have gotten hold of this mad idea that I'm a prissy toff who cares about nothing except whether his hat is the latest in fashion.' He twisted round to glare at me better. 'I'm always forgetting which fork to eat with and how to greet someone in the street rather than in their home! But you're treating me like I'm some exotic animal permamently dressed in evening wear!'

I snickered. His scowl deepened, his eyebrows gouging a line across his forehead as though it had been drawn there with ink. 'Get it through your head, Kit. I can still beat you at marbles and I bet you a ha'penny I can lay you flat quicker than Wiggins can.'

'That,' I scoffed, 'is very unlikely.'

Too late, I unfolded my knees to get up. Sherringford seemed to spring up like a jack in the box; he grabbed my shoulders and slammed me down against the pavement. 'Hah!' he crowed.

'No fair!' I cried, wriggling. 'I weren't ready!'

'Then you've got to be. Still think I'm a toff?'

'Well...'

'I won't let you up until you say I'm not.'

'Alright, alright. You're not a toff.'

He released my shoulders and I sat up sulkily. Sherringford shook his head, grinning suddenly. 'Kit, you...'

'Me wha'?'

'You dandyprat!'

'Same to you with knobs on!'

Sherringford laughed. 'I'm still not a toff. You said so.'

'Doesn't count. You made me say it.' He made another lunge, but this time I was ready and leaped up and away. He chased after me, and I ran down the street, tearing past a donkey cart, startling a crowd of pigeons, sending a ragged cat streaking for the cover of a nearby alley. Someone shouted, a woman cursed, but I was laughing. Sherringford grabbed my arm, but I shook him away and came to an abrupt halt, swinging around a lamp post, panting and grinning at him.

He grinned back. 'Still a toff?'

'Say!'

'I never understand why people say that. What's it mean?'

'Do you know why you don't know?'

Sherringford, suspecting a trap, asked, 'Slang?'

'It's 'cos you're a toff!'

He caught a handful of my shirt as I darted away and hauled me back. 'I am not!'

'You are!' I sang out. 'A ruddy toff!'

'I can still beat you at marbles and still beat you up and still catch you -'

'No you can't!' I leaped away from him and ran again.

Sherringford ran after me, shouting, 'You still owe me a ha'penny!'


FINIS

*sniffle* That's it? Well, you'd better come out with another one soon!

In the meantime...

It was three days after I had left Baker Street. I had found Wiggins and the rest of the Irregulars.

Feel’s choppy, might be better combined.

Rat had blinked, bit his lip and asked if it were quick.

I think “was quick” would be better here, but that might just be semantics.

The others – Red, Simpson, Harry and Zo – shrugged and looked uncomfortable; Simpson whistled a little between his teeth and shuffled his feet. Simpson always displayed nervous tics in times of emotion.

Humph. This just feels dissatisfying; even though you’re showing it feels more like telling. Is there any reason why this has to be in past perfect? Couldn’t we just have the scene where she tells them?


Okay, I must just say, the dialogue between Kit and Wiggans is beautiful

I blinked again, remembered why my left eye was not clearing, and sat up.

Oh, that’s right! Half-blind, somehow I’d forgotten. Erm, it might be good/cool to have the Irregulars’ reaction to that…

Sherringford seemed to be waiting for something; whether for me to say something or Wiggins to do something, I could not tell.

Personally, I think this sentence should stop at that first “something,” but if you’d like to keep the rest, please do nix the others. Also “couldn’t” instead of “could not” would feel more natural here.

‘Can I speak to Kit by herself?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I do.’

“Because I want to”? I don’t know, odd response…

‘But you're treating me like I'm some exotic animal permamently dressed in evening wear!'

*snicker* Oh, and unless Brits and Yanks spell it differently, I think you mean “permanently.”


Sherringford is such a toff. And I love Kit. And that was a wonderful ending.